Paper of specialized performance characteristics may be created by applying a thin layer of coating material to one or both sides of the paper. The coating is typically a mixture of a fine plate-like mineral, typically clay or particulate calcium carbonate; coloring agents, typically titanium dioxide for a white sheet; and a binder which may be of the organic type or of a synthetic composition. Coated paper is typically used in magazines, commercial catalogs and advertising inserts in newspapers. The coated paper may be formed with a smooth bright surface which improves the readability of the text and the quality of photographic reproductions. Coated papers are divided into a number of grades. The higher value grades, the so-called coated free-sheet, are formed of paper fibers wherein the lignin have been removed by digestion. Less expensive grades of coated paper contain ten percent or more ground-wood pulp which is less expensive than pulp formed by digestion.
Coated ground-wood papers include the popular designation "lightweight coated" (LWC) paper. For lightweight coated paper, coating weight is approximately thirty percent of total sheet weight and these grades of paper are popular with magazine publishers, direct marketers, and commercial printers as the lighter weight paper saves money on postage and other weight-related costs. With the increasing demand for lighter weight, lower cost coated papers, there is an increasing need for more efficiency in the production of these paper grades.
Paper is typically more productively produced by increasing the speed of formation of the paper and coating costs are kept down by coating the paper while still on the papermaking machine. Because the paper is made at higher and higher speeds and because of the advantages of on-machine coating, the coaters in turn must run at higher speeds. The need in producing lightweight coatings to hold down the weight of the paper and the costs of the coating material encourages the use of short dwell coaters which subject the paper web to the coating material for a short period of time and thus limit the depth of penetration of the coating and hence the coating weight.
High speed coater machines are key to producing lightweight coated papers cost-effectively. However, the use of short dwell coaters at high machine speeds has led to defects in the coating, typically coating streaks. Coating streaks are caused by air entrained in the boundary layer of the raw stock or paper web. The boundary layer air forms bubbles in the coating pond, and the bubbles pressing up against a metering blade prevent the coating from uniformly flowing under the blade.
What is needed is a means for preventing the formation of large bubbles in the coating pond adjacent to the metering blade.